


Recognition

by Catchclaw



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Memory Loss, Plot What Plot, Schmoop, Season/Series 07, the born-again identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 09:41:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A boozier AU version of Castiel’s return. Emmanuel meets a guy named Dean at a bar, one thing leads to another, and before you know it…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recognition

Imbibing alcohol, it struck me, was perhaps not the most effective way to manage one's problems.

Ironically, I realized this only after my sixth or seventh shot of something called "Johnny Walker Black."

Why the man's racial identity was of any import to his ability to successfully ferment barley, I could not discern.

I had my glasses stacked neatly in front of me, despite the aggressive efforts of the young woman behind the bar to divest me of their company. After the fourth such attempt, I tucked them closer to me and shielded them with my arms. In that moment, I wished that I had wings, but perhaps that would have overwhelmed my inhibreated colleagues at the bar.

In truth, though, only one person there had even met my eye. The rest seemed impervious to me, to each other, to anything beyond the beer in front of them. Which, truth be told, was a state of moral unbeing with which I was quite comfortable, that night.

Still, the one person who had noted my presence seemed determined to do so repeatedly, his green eyes catching mine in the mirror behind the bar.

No. It was more than that.

He was staring.

It was not--unpleasant.

He was not difficult to gaze at in return.

By the time I stacked the eighth glass on top of six and seven, he had moved down to the seat beside my own. He did it quickly, smoothly, like a cat.

I looked up just as his tongue flickered over his lips. Preening.

As if I were a bowl of cream.

He smiled and said: "Hi. I'm Dean."

He held out his hand, I think, but I was too preoccupied to be sure.

Because up close, in the light, he looked decidedly--familiar.

I leaned in, trying to get a better look, and lost my balance. I pitched forward and he caught my shoulders. Fast. His face broken wide in a smile.

"Whoa," he said, chuckling. "Easy there."

His hands remained. Steadying me. His eyes gentle inside my own.

"So what's your name?" he asked.

And there was something in his voice that suggested the question was perhaps more complex than his words belied. I heard it, that note, but Mr. Walker's handiwork was beginning to show some returns. I felt as I though I were thinking through a shroud, my mind heavy and thick.

Like cream.

"I--I am called Emmanuel," I said.

He blinked.

"Emmanuel, huh?" he said easily, taking his hands from my body. Lifting up his glass. "That's a hell of a name."

"No," I corrected. Feeling certain again. "It is a name born of grace, not of sin."

He raised an eyebrow. "Ok. If you say so."

I leaned into the bar, unable to maintain my equilibrium and remain on the stool. In my seat. "I do, Dean."

He trembled, when I said that. His name. I found that to be--confusing.

My presence, I had been told--by my wife, by those I had helped--was a comfort. A source of peace. But it was not so, with him.

He met my eyes, and it hurt me to see that they were wet.

I reached for him, for his face, without realizing it, and did not stop until his jaw was in my palm, his pulse alive under my fingertips.

If I had not been drinking, I would not have been so bold. Of that I am certain.

If I had not been drinking, I would not have let him touch me back, his hand roping over my wrist.

If I had not been drinking, I would not have looked into his eyes and recognized that this man, this human whom I did not know, wanted me. Was physically attracted to me and, perhaps. Something more than that.

There was much in my new life that I did not understand, that I found painful and confusing, but not this. Rather, it felt like the first moment of certainty, of clarity, of true grace that I had felt since I had awakened shivering and stark at the edge of the river just a few months before. My mind and body unclothed, my sense of self erased, my purpose lost. My life, whatever it had been before: ashes.

But it was worth it, all of that uncertainty, when I touched him. Dean. When he touched me.

What happened next is hazy: money on the bar and Dean's hand in mine, tugging, leading me away from my pyramid of glass.

He did not speak. Nor did I. I simply followed. Into a car. Onto the road. Through the door of a motel room. Out of the darkness and into a circle of light.

He locked the door and turned, that beautiful face overrun with water. With tears.

I did not know why he was in pain, or why such a thing should matter to me so much, in a stranger, but I reached for him. Took his face in my hands as he whispered "Cas, Cas," in a language I did not understand, and kissed him. Licked the salt from his lips and moaned into his mouth.

My body, it seemed, knew something that I did not.

He got his hands in my sweater and pulled, unwrapped the wool from my shoulders and threw it aside. I divested him of his coat, the leather slick through my fingers, and pushed my palms into his sides.

His breath came faster, as we kissed, his fingers clutching my shirt. Me. A drowning man hanging on for dear life.

And I--

I floated away from my body, for a time. Hovered above it, watching Dean caress my skin, suck roses into my throat, peel away the layers until I was exposed, until our flesh was a messy tangle on the bed.

My hands in his hair, his mouth burned into my own.

The bow of his back, scored by my nails and scarred and softer than anything I could remember.

My cock in his grasp, full and shuddering as he stroked, his tongue weaving patterns over the slit, around the head.

But it was his voice that brought me all the way back, the note of grace on his lips when he came, his seed falling over my chest and down my hips. Like cream.

The sound of my name, it was.

"Castiel," he sang, and I was home.


End file.
